Chocolate cups

When I agreed to bring a dessert to an ugly sweater party, I started browsing through cookbooks to try something new to take. I stumbled across these little morsels. They take a bit of work, but they are simple to make if you have time. It looks fancy, and the filling could be any number of things. In the picture below, I made chocolate orange mousse. I'll probably post that recipe in a couple days.

Chocolate cups
source: Baker's Chocolate Lover's Cookbook

1 bag of milk or semi-sweet chocolate chips
cooking spray
muffin paper liners
patience :)

Melt the chocolate chips in the microwave on high for one minute. Stir it. If it isn't melted, nuke it in 30 second intervals until it is melted. A couple tips- Don't over cook it! Also, if the chocolate gets water on it, it will seize. It becomes lumpy and unusable.

Place the muffin cup liners in the muffin tin. Lightly spray the interior of the liners with cooking spray.
I use a cookie scoop and pour in about 2-3 tablespoons of chocolate.
Use a pastry brush and brush the chocolate up the sides of the muffin liners. Make sure that it is fairly thick and that it covers all areas. The first time around, I actually double coated them with chocolate. The second time, I just used more chocolate the first time through. If you do two layers of chocolate, they will be thicker. With one coat, they can be pretty fragile and break easily.
Place the muffin tin in the fridge so the chocolate can set up. I wait about 20-25 minutes. Once they are done, take one out at a time. Grab a small part of the paper liner and pull it down. Continue to pull the rest of the wrapper off. The cups can break pretty easily here, so be gentle with them! I found that slow and steady is best here.
When you're done, you'll have this:
They're pretty fancy looking! When I made the orange chocolate mousse, I served that in these chocolate cups. When my kids said that they were done, the mousse was in a pile on their plate and the chocolate cup was nowhere to be found. Needless to say, they were bouncing off the walls for a good hour after that. Little stinkers...